Strategic Brand Management
Module leader: Professor Leslie de Chernatony, Università della Svizzera italiana
Duration and timing: total of 24 hours, Summer Term
Overview
Building on the earlier core Marketing module, this elective is designed to develop a critical understanding of brand management as a major issue in strategic marketing. The traditional classical model of branding stressed consumers, but the new paradigm advanced in this module takes a more balanced perspective, recognising the importance of staff and other stakeholders as brand builders. A more integrated communications approach is needed to ensure a coherent promise across all stakeholder groups. With the growth of corporate brands, successful brands result from co-ordinated pan-company actions. No longer is it viable to claim long term competitive advantage from functional benefits: instead corporations recognise the importance of emotional differentiation, driven by their organisational culture.
The module opens by discussing the nature of brands, the concept of the brand as a promise, and mechanisms to encourage a coherent brand strategy. The attributes associated with powerful brands will be explored, along with techniques to ensure effective brand differentiation. You will be exposed to the diverse interpretations managers have of the brand concept and will see how models enable brand evolution to be anticipated. A typology of added values will be described. A significant amount of time will be devoted to a strategic framework which enables the development of a coherent brand, and each stage of this framework will be explored in depth. The material covered will be of relevance to product and services sectors.
Assessment
Individual report and practical group task, addressing a problem related to strategic brand management
